multiversallogs | the process of delving into the black abyss is to me the keenest form of fascination

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the process of delving into the black abyss is to me the keenest form of fascination

Who: Lucius Malfoy (Sr), Cindy and Blink
What: A journey to the fringes of reality for fun and profit. The second trip of others.
Where: The outskirts of Baedal, i.e., the fog.
When: Shundi morning.

They are far out enough, now, and the thick dense fog obscures their surroundings.

That said, there could be nothing to obscure, and there is that sense that although the fog acts as a veil, Lucius would not place money on the idea it hides anything at all beyond its legendary monsters and treasures. They've driven out through farmland until the encroaching mist swallowed the car, a thing Lucius hired with the down payment earned from Snape with the keys tossed to someone capable, and at the sight of some shape made blurred and indefinite, they'd come to a halt. Now, Lucius is (quite happily) out of the vehicle and leaving the door open, his wand out and shining a somewhat useless illumination charm at the end of it, the light doing very little to penetrate the thick fog that presses in from all sides.

Regardless, he points it to the figure. It's an animal of some kind, quite dead, as made evident by the jagged row of exposed ribcage pointing for the hidden sky. It stinks of ruined meat, with a smear on the road where its innards used to be before scavengers-- or indeed, predators-- consumed it. It's an unnatural thing, a six-legged, furred beast with its neck broken and bent, eyes picked clean and fur gone grey. Horns, silvery, wind in spirals from its head, one of them broken perhaps from age or conflict.

"Someone's done the task for us," he notes, just loud enough to be heard, his voice almost tinny in the strange atmosphere.

[ OOC: ONE OF YOU can have driven the car, Lucius cannot. :( ]

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"Well, if you're not going to drag it back to the car, then hurry up and let's get the hell out of here. I would like to find something useful to me within the next hour or so."

With that, she slips back into the driver's seat, gun placed on her lap and shifts the gear into drive. "Come on, Blondie. And wrap that shit up before it stinks up the car."

If he wants to find the end of this trip, he better hurry before her foot meets the gas pedal.

Blink tucks herself back into the passenger seat, clearly unimpressed wtih Malfoy's attitude, but holding her tongue. Magneto would be proud of her - look how mature.

Besides, from what she's seen, Malfoy's condescension is as reflexive as breathing, and she'd rather waste her energy on something she can change.

"You want me to take a peek up ahead?" she asks Cindy.

It's a fair enough point that a flick of his wand summons a simple swath of black silk, only just big enough to wrap the part. Last in, he takes the moment to roll his eyes on his way inside the vehicle, decidedly keeping to himself as he twists to place the item in the back and sets about cleaning his hand.

Beneath the murmur of discussion upfront, Lucius' own silence which is as pointed as noise itself, and the purr of the engine gunning up--

Well, the thing moves on silent feet anyway.

With visibility being what it is, they'll only see it by the time it's airborne from some unknown running start - a great lizardy thing launches itself through the air and brings its large, birdish feet down upon the nose of the car just as Cindy started to inch it forward. There's a creak and whine of metal, car juddering beneath metal denting impact. Ribbons of saliva and gushing steam both suddenly blossom across the windshield when the lizard opens its mouth to shriek, displaying its many small teeth.

Correction: two mouths. It boasts two heads on two muscled necks. Its skin is grey-green and scaly, arms week and body lean, but a sort of knotted quality to its musculature that speaks of something more deformed than healthy.

"I saw that, Blondie." Not that she cares for or about this attitude. Cindy just likes to bother him because he looks like an easy target. She likes those kinds of people.

"Sure. You probably won't see much, but four eyes are better than just--" Both her sentence and movement with the car are cut short by the appearance of... something. Cindy's never seen anything like it in all her centuries, even if she includes her monster of an ex-husband. The car's dented by the weight of the creature hanging on the front and it seems like everything and everybody shifts forward violently. It's only by quick thinking that Cindy grabs her gun to shoot through the windshield but not quite getting anywhere through the thick glass. Maybe it's enough to scare the thing off, maybe not.

Goddamn it.

Clarice was not wearing a seatbelt, but blinks a portal in front of her so, instead of slamming into the dashboard, the lands in a graceful tumble behind the car (and the lizard on its hood).

"You want me to move this bad boy for you?" Assuming it would hold still long enough for her to lance it, which was a big assumption. Then again, nothing ever got done the easy way.

Lucius' hands plant on the seat in front of him, bracing himself on pure instinct by the time the car judders to its halt. A further flinch at gun going off in such close quarters and the windshield spidering broken without actually shattering. The creature squeals in a way that is both absurd and horrifying, thick claws scraping the fuck out of the hood as it scrabbles back, only to hiss and pitch forward for where it sees, with all four eyes, Cindy's shape through the glass.

Bonk-bonk.

But also crack, the glass threatening to give beneath preternaturally powerful reptilian muscle and bloodlust. Thick enough skulls not to be too disoriented from the impact either. Lucius then contributes fifteen inches worth of seemingly uselessly mahogany pointed directly towards the creature, through Cindy's peripheral vision, and utters something ridiculous: "Expulso."

The windshield immediately shatters outwards, but more relevantly, it takes the creature with it, toppling it clean off the hood with a few spatters of blackish-green blood.

It disappears over the nose of the car, but probably isn't dead. The wand remains pointed to fend off further attack but Lucius isn't going anywhere in a hurry. "Quickly--"

With no time to respond to Blink and even less to nod slightly impressed at Lucius' wandwork, Cindy floors the gas, hoping Blink can, well, blink her ass right back into the passenger's seat without a problem.

If she has to turn around and run by that deformed Jurassic Park reject, Cindy will be damned if she becomes dinner.

Blink lives and dies by her reaction times, and this is no exception. She throws herself another portal. She might be able to pop herself directly into a moving vehicle, but now isn't the time to chance that if she doesn't have to. Besides, momentum still has to go somewhere. So this port goes on the ground, and she drops lightly onto the moving car's roof. It's easy enough, gymnast that she is, to swing herself in the open window to her old seat.

"Fancy shooting," she says to both of them. "We going back for another pass?"

Relaxing-- well, no, that isn't the right word-- conforming back into his seat once the car begins to move again, Lucius isn't quite ready to put his wand down or away. The dinosaur-monster thing lets out a piercing wail-- two of them, actually, at a shrieking pitch in tandem-- as Cindy's wheels eats up something breakable beneath it, the engine growling beneath dented hood.

Rather than be a vocal voice of decision making in response to Blink's question, Lucius simply reminds himself to enchant the blasted vehicles next time. Not so that it can fly, but the ability to withstand great two-headed lizards would be ideal.

Smart girl, this Blink is. Cindy can't quite say the same for Lucius, but there's a bit of lingering respect for his quick thinking. Though, yes, next time an enchantment would be nice. That and somebody watching their back at all times to give a shout when angry hungry lizards come for a sniff.

"Well, now that we've been introduced, why not? Goodness knows his foot might bring us luck." The sarcasm in her voice is practically palpable, though even she knows that if the creature is injured, it might give them a leg up on the beast. "Now if we all agree, I can turn this car right around, but only if somebody keeps their eyes open because I can't drive and keep the eyes in back of my head open at the same time."

"You want lookout duty, Malfoy, or am I watching our back?" It seems like Lucius' offense was better at range than hers; the best she can do before someone gets close is hurl a dart at them, but she has to have somewhere for them to go. ("Up" generally works; bless gravity.) But she also doesn't want to push the wizard wrong. He seems like he's full of cracks, and she has little interest in finding them all.

There's a look cast out the window just beside him, the dense fog beyond that the two headed creature had near materialised from, as if weighing up whether this is a task to fail due to its form. But if wizards only ever relied on their eyes, they'd probably be even more endangered than they were when he left his world.

"Turn back," he agrees, turning his attention from the window to address what he can see of the two women. "And I'll keep a lookout. The job is half done, I would think."

"And the people have voted," Cindy announces, pulling a sharp U-turn and speeding back to the scene of their former crime where the monster lies licking it's wounds. It's still just as dangerous as it was before. After all, it's still breathing.

"Blink, tell me you know how to use a gun as well as those other things you got."

"I know how," she confirms. "I just don't usually need too. What do you want done more specifically than 'killing it?'" She's not anti-gun, she just usually leaves them to people who need them more.

One of its legs is laid at a wrong angle, toes lax on the end of its foot with its long, wicked claws that had measured deep scrapes in the hood of the car. One head is devoted to nosing at itself, the other mostly just drooling on the glass littered road before it cocks a slit-eye towards the approaching car. It opens its mouth wide, showing rows of yellow teeth, a low hissing produced from its throat. As if it could scare it away.

"Try not to ruin too much of its hide," Lucius suggests, tone lazy. Someone out there could use boots made of monster raptor.

Its arms arm measurably weaker than its legs, but still, it uses what it can in an attempt to get up, a lurching movement, tail thrashing, and never quite making it.

Cindy is quiet for a moment as she leans to on side and pulls out the second gun she keeps at the small of her back, handing it to Blink. "Aim for the head. Both of them."

She agrees with not ruining the hide and a direct shot will end this fight quickly. Now if there's a market for monster brains, then they're just shit out of luck today. Driving closer and just past the monster, Cindy makes it a point to drive over the other leg, breaking it effectively but also gaining a few more deep scratches to the side of the car. The howls from the thing are absolutely delicious.

"Time to move, kids," she announces as she yanks the car to a stop, and doublechecks her gun. Five bullets left. She needs to make each one count.

"Right." Blink takes the offered gun and pops herself over to the lizard's other side - not directly across, as she's no intention of being hit accidentally, but in a place where she's in a good position to take a shot at one of the thing's heads before it can react.

She's a good enough shot, and she's close, but she's ready to pop away if she needs to. Blink knows just how dangerous a wounded animal can be.

The bullet hits its mark, punching through reptilian skull and spattering black blood, teeth and other unpleasant biological debris upon the rough terrain its legs have been smeared upon. The head left alive twitches as if it, too, had been shot, before blinking its feline eyes and letting out a high pitched mourning wail, all fear and bristling fury.

Its broken body lurches to lunge itself uselessly towards where Blink had been standing, a loud snap of its jaws closing in thin air - but it won't be going far, with one dead head dangling off its split neck, forelimbs clawing against the ground and bones splintered through where its knees used to be.

Around it, glass shards start moving along the ground as if caught up in an invisible wind. An absent charm in an effort to fix at least the windshield, the incantation inaudible to Blink and Cindy. Lucius has, by now, gotten out of the vehicle for the express purpose of a better vantage point.

Presumably, they are currently alone.

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the process of delving into the black abyss is to me the keenest form of fascination

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